Michigan!!

This past weekend we attended a conference for Amway Global in Grand Rapids, Michigan and had a fabulous trip!! These pics are at the headquarters where the products are manufatured and distributed world wide. We were excited to be there :)

I wish I had taken pictures of the actual conference, because it was more like a huge motivational party! We heard amazing speakers, including the man who's life was made into the movie "The Pursuit of Happpyness" as well as political and business leaders. So cool!! We loved being there together to experience it and learn side by side :)

Surprise trip to Utah!!

We decided to surprise our family by flying in for conference weekend. LOL! It was great!! My parents had no clue and it was so fun to get my brothers in on the surprise. They helped in devising ways to jump out and surprise them when they came home Wednesday night, and we got them good!! Shanam and I hadn't been home since we got married 5 months ago, so we enjoyed being with our fam again.

BYU game against Utah State with Shanam's parents
Fully enjoying conference :)

My family drives through the Alpine Loop while we listen to the Sunday afternoon session on the radio. Guess what we found at the top of the mountain!! SNOW!! Shanam was very happy, to say the least :)

During priesthood session the girls all got toether for a little shopping. Guess how much we saved during their sale at Shade!? $176.00!!! Now that's definitely some conference upliftment! So fun to spend time with family and friends (especially my newly pregnant best friend :) Congrats, Bre!

Phoenix!!

Girl Bonding Time!!!!!

I was able to go hang out with these awesome girlies for a whole week!! So much fun!! My trip to Phoenix was for business, but when I wasn't working it was all play!! Anndalyn and Melissa were great hosts and took me to see all the sites. The zoo being one of my faves :) These pics were taken on our girls night out for dinner and a movie. We saw Fame (fabulous I recommend it) and ate at an awesome restaurant that was right up my ally!

Married women can still have fun and act like goofs :)

Great organic food grown right there at the restaurant in their greenhouses!! I had a fabulous, maybe even best I've ever had, portebello mushroom burger with fresh beet salad. Yum!!

Went to visit the Mesa Temple on Sunday after going to church with Mel and her hubster. Their ward was baby crazy!! Can you believe 7 nurseries!! On the church records there are 300 kids under the age of 12!

We got to talk to the sister missionaries and they were so excited to hear that we had served as companions in France together. They let us listen to the Christus recording in French! We were both crying by the end because it brought back so many good memories from the mission :)

The trip was also filled with great physical activities! Mel and I played a match of tennis in the sweltering heat and worked out at the gym she works at and Anndalyn, the kids, and I went for a beautiful morning hike in the mountains right behind there house on another morning.

Aren't her kids so adorable!!! I loved spending time with them, singing and laughing and playing!

I could just eat her up!

It was fun to watch the kids when daddy got home!

Copper Canyon!!

Well, we made it! We had a fabulous trip and enjoyed every minute! Even the minute we got rear-ended within 10 minutes of being in Mexico. Lol. A little ironic...don't you think? Don't worry, everything was fine and our car wasn't damaged at all, thank goodness! All of our prayers worked :) Above, is a beautiful waterfall we off-roaded to. I have never been more happy to be on smooth ground after that little adventure!
This is the little bed and breakfast we stayed in for two nights in the town of Creel. Get this! All four of us in one room with breakfast and dinner included was only $45!! I love Mexico!

These are wonderful little hot springs at the bottom of a canyon. So amazing!! So were the scary, steep switch-backs leading down to it! You weren't allowed to drive on it unless you had 4 wheel drive. Guess who was first in line :) I was very grateful that we didn't have to walk back up, though! It takes 4 hours!!

And the most beautiful sight of all...Copper Canyon! We hiked as high as we could go and enjoyed the breathtaking views (and drops) all along the way! Wish we could have stayed up there a little longer! The weather was gorgeous for the whole trip and it was neat to experience a different culture as well as enjoy their yummy food!

Labor Day Weekend Trip

This may be the most adventurous adventure yet!! And hopefully we'll return from it...we're going to Mexico...we're bringing guns...and I wish I had some body armor. j/k It won't be that bad :) But I'm sure it'll be exciting! We've got some friends who have a house in the canyons south of Juarez, so yes we'll be driving through Juarez...but it will be during the day, we'll be staying on the highway, and we won't be making any stops. This was assured me after I expressed my concerns, so hopefully this will calm your apprehension as well. We'll be with people who are from there, so that makes me feel better, too. We're pretty excited to go and can't wait to see the beautiful sights! We'll make sure to take lots of pics!

It's that time again!

It was time for Shanam's monthly dose of medicine. This was a more spontaneous trip, as in a 5:00 Friday night text while he's at work, "Honey, why are we not driving to the mountains right now?" I knew that was a clue to how stressful his day had gone and how much he needed to get away. "Well, do you want to go?" I texted back. The answer, "Uh, yes?" It sounded like he didn't know how I was going to respond :) I'm up for fun adventures and a good road trip any day (just ask Bre or Anndalyn :), so I told him I'd pack and pick him up in an hour. We decided to go to a little town in the mountains of New Mexico called Cloudcroft. This place sits at 9000 ft, pretty much at the top of a mountain ridge. The drive through the mountains would have been gorgeous if we had left a little earlier, however, we managed to arrive right around midnight. After an hour of trying to find a perfect spot to pitch our tent for the night, we found a cop who was on bar duty to show us a little road tucked away in the forest that lead to some good areas. We thanked him and eventually got settled in to bed around 2 am. Fun stuff! The stars were absolutely breathtaking that night and we slept with our rain cover off so we could enjoy them. Only problem was, it got dreadfully cold in the morning and we made sure the next night to enjoy the stars before going to bed and slept with the cover on :)

Our first day was full of adventure! Of course we went mountain biking, and I must say, I was awesome!! LOL! I did a whole lot better and except for the high elevation "stop-I-can't-breath" parts, it was great!! Shanam said that his favorite part of the whole weekend was watching me push through the challenging parts. I told him that my favorite part was watching him ride in front of me. He's really good and he'll jump off things and hop over other things, but more than that, I just love taking in the whole picture. His home is in the mountains. That's what gives him life. So when I see him, racing through an open meadow, with the mountains and trees surrounding him, I know at those moments that there is no other place I would rather be than right there with him, feeling his joy and freedom :) No matter how hard I'm huffing and puffing :)

That's true love, right there, baby! LOL!

Questions

After 3 months of marriage, here's the most common question I get asked, "So, how's married life?" And it always begins with 'so', as if the answer is some hidden secret :) I usually respond with something short and sweet, which I'm sure they were expecting (they couldn't possibly think I'd tell them the secret! :) I answer with, "Great!" Or sometimes, "Amazing!" Or other times I get really detailed and I say, "It rocks!" LOL. But, honestly, how could I tell them the full answer? How could I explain the joy I feel when I wake up every morning next to a man who when he realizes I'm up, rolls over and draws me up into his arms to tell me good morning. How could I explain the love I feel as he serves me by doing the dishes after a long day at work and all he wants to do is relax. We eat together, we play together, we drive together, we talk together, we sit in silence together, we pray together, we laugh together, we set goals together. We are together in every sense of the word. There are no words to descibe how wonderful that feels. Man is not meant to be alone. God teaches us that, but it isn't until you enter into that marriage covenant that you finally gain an understanding as to why. And we're only at the beginning of that understanding :) To our single friends, keep becoming the best you you can be, for it will only make that beautiful relationship that much better when it happens! We are so grateful we married each other when we were a little older and knew ourselves a little better. We both agreed that if we had met in high school or college we would have wanted nothing to do with each other! LOL! God's timing is perfect :) It only took one time for our lives to cross, and that one time has turned into eternity :)